How many times have you heard or read these phrases while reading a book or watching a movie?

 

 

Her eyes sparkled, like glistening pools.

 

I loved him, so I let him go.

 

I avoid them like the plague.

 

After what felt like a century…

 

It’s hot as hell out here!

 

 

Clichés are alright to use in conversation, but can become tedious or even feel wrong when used in storytelling. The fact that we use clichés so often in our everyday lives is perhaps why their appearances in writing are so unwelcome. Clichés when used between two people who share a general cultural experience can be especially helpful in communication. You take a phrase or comparison that you and everyone around you use all the time and with minimal effort, you’re able to communicate something the other person does not know using something they already know. 

 

 

It is only when these clichés are written down over and over within the same manuscript that we realize how often we repeat the same comparisons and allusions. It’s harder to catch how many clichés are thrown around in conversations because there typically isn’t a court reporter or a caption author following us around 24/7. Repeated use of clichés is, at best, annoying, and, at worst, takes audiences out of the story. In this post, I’m going to provide a tip for how to avoid using clichés in your writing, and, if you still need to use them, what you can do to try and make them your own. 

 

 

Avoiding Clichés

 

One of the best reasons to avoid using clichés is that too great a reliance on them can make writing look and feel lazy. As I said before, clichés are favored because they can convey a lot of information through a short phrase. However, books, TV shows, and movies aren’t meant to feel like a collection of concise snippets. A lot of the time, the sentiments held in clichés can be broken down and expanded upon. Expanding upon ideas in clichés without actually using them lets writers capture the same mood and message while making the message more accessible and giving it more depth. Here are some examples:

 

 

I loved him, so I let him go 

 

becomes

 

I watched from the kitchen window as he drove off in his truck. It wasn’t until I felt the tears dripping off my chin that I realized I was crying. Part of me wanted to run off down the road, to get to the stoplight before it changed to green. But I knew it was best for both of us that I stayed here, in the quiet of my house.

 

 

and

 

After what felt like a century, the phone rang.

 

becomes

 

I sat by the phone, tense with anticipation. I knew it would ring soon. I knew I’d jump when it did. My ears strained so hard they began to ring. My eyes bulged so much that little dots danced around my vision. My back was hunched, my fingers tingled. I felt like I was falling, sinking slowly but surely into my bed below me. And then: RING!

 

 

Breaking down clichés gives writers the power to contextualize and strengthen different elements of their writing in a way that isn’t possible by just using the clichés themselves. It challenges writers to show more than they tell while also imbuing the situation with more emotion and context. These phrases before expansion offered some context, but only generic information. When expanding upon clichés, make sure that your expansion isn’t just in length, but in meaning and relevancy to the particular scenario you’re writing.

 

 

While:

 

I broke up with my girlfriend because I wanted her to be happy. Now I’m sad but also happy because she’s going to be happy, even though we’re both sad. I did this because I love her. But we can’t be together even though I love her so I decided to break up with her because I want us both to have the opportunity to be happy.

 

 

is, in fact, longer than the cliché “I loved him/her, so I let him/her go,” you don’t really get all that much more out of it. There’s not a lot of emotion and it tells rather than shows. It’s just as essential to add to a cliché when breaking it down as it is to expand upon it.

 

 

Up-Cycling Clichés

 

When you want to convey a common idea found in a cliché, but expanding it isn’t an option, another alternative to just using the cliché is to up-cycle a pre-existing one.

 

 

For instance, in my own writing, I wanted to convey a sense of time running out in a long suspenseful way. This instance is in the fantasy novel that I’m currently working on, where time is only told through looking at the position of the sun in the sky. My first instinct was to compare the days my protagonist had left with her only friend by using the overly clichéd metaphor of sand rushing through an hourglass. I stopped, though, because that metaphor simply wouldn’t make sense within the world I had created. The culture I was writing about didn’t utilize glass, so they certainly didn’t have hourglasses. I thought about it for a few minutes. Here’s what I came up with:

 

 

“Neither knew what that particular Dei’s presence meant. Nor did they know their days of running and laughing in the garden were numbered, slowly and steadily running out, like water dripping from a leaky pail.”

 

 

By modifying an already existing image, I was able to create a message that was similar enough to sands running through an hourglass, but that also fit the rules of the setting I had established. The modification of the cliché makes more sense than to completely replace it in this usage because the phrase is not being used to replace relevant information.

 

 

Again, just because some wordings or aspects of a cliché are changed doesn’t mean that it has been upcycled. Someone can use:

 

 

Her eyes were glistening like how the sun shines on the sea.

 

instead of

 

Her eyes sparkled, like glistening pools.

 

 

Yes, the modified cliché is more detailed, but unless these details are relevant to the story being told.  If the character thinking this has a particular attachment or connection to the ocean or watching the sunshine on the ocean or if the sun on the ocean is a motif used throughout the story, then this modification works. However, this modification, in most cases, would have no purpose. It’s just a repackaging of the same bland overused cliché.

 

 

In summary, think of writing with clichés in terms of the opening of the Spongebob episode “One Krab’s Trash.”

 

 

 

While clichés are useful in conversations, they are a lot like the second-hand toilet plunger from the garbage that Mr. Krabs sells to Patrick. While it can be rebranded as a “17th-century soup ladle” in order to be more appealing, you’re probably better off using something else.